The Winslow Boy (1999)

THE WINSLOW BOY Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam (1999, Columbia TriStar, 104 mins., G, also on DVD) Terence Rattigan's post-Edwardian play -- about an English naval cadet accused of petty theft and his family's unflagging efforts to restore his honor -- hardly seems compatible material for director David Mamet. But this genteel period piece invites a typically Mametian tension between its characters' stylized manners and their underlying motivations. As the proud Winslows risk financial ruin for the sake of principle, the governing passions are so exquisitely suppressed that, when they do surface, it's a genuine revelation. Reel Goodies (0:41) Before taking the Winslows' case, celebrated barrister Sir Robert Morton (Northam) interviews the boy (Guy Edwards) with the cold-blooded ruthlessness of a cross-examination. The Last Detail Mamet honed his drawing-room style with the screenplay for Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street, adapted from Chekhov's classic. A-

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